History Taking As Formal/Informal Assessment Method: A Perspective Of Healthcare Professionals

Abstract

History taking is an integral part of assessment. History taking is basically collecting reliable and valid information from your patient. The objective of this study was to assess the perception of healthcare professionals regarding history taking as formal or informal assessment. A qualitative study design was used for this study. In this explanatory study design researcher developed the holistic picture based on the reported information. A semi structured interview format was developed on the basis of literature review d experts opinion. To verify the format of the formulated questions in semi structured a pilot study was conducted. Eight health care providers were taken as the sample size. Purposive sampling technique was used in this study. Interpretative phenomenological analysis was used to interpret the data. The duration of this study was six months from January 2022 to June 2020. Data was collected through the Semi structured interview taken by eight healthcare providers that were general practitioner, speech language pathologist, occupational therapist and an audiologist respectively. Data was analyzed with the help of interpretative phenomenological analysis. The interpretation of the data showed that history taking is a type of informal assessment. Several themes emerged from the perceptions related history taking that includes importance in diagnosis, Questions, Doctor Patient commitment, History Timing, Barriers, Clinical Assessment. The researcher concluded that history taking is an informal way of assessment that contains different questions that are changeable. The process of history taking depends upon the state of the patient. Healthcare providers face different types of difficulties while the process of history taking.